<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/9ffccc31-8ee4-44ce-a2a7-1ceac75a15f5/72418651-C784-4936-A81F-1B8BA6BA269D/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://happydays.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/the-self-thinking-thought/" href="http://happydays.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/the-self-thinking-thought/" style="font-size: 11px;">happydays.blogs.nytimes.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://happydays.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/the-self-thinking-thought/"><H2 class="entry-title">The Self-Thinking Thought</H2></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://happydays.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/the-self-thinking-thought/"><div align="center"><img src="http://content6.clipmarks.com/blog_cache/happydays.blogs.nytimes.com/img/16FBEE55-2AEC-4538-9C1D-1CA36C33A3DE" alt="Happy Days - At Year's End, Three Writers examine Our Ties to Friends, Family, and Tradition." /></div></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://happydays.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/the-self-thinking-thought/"><P>A proof for God’s existence came to Anselm in the dark of early morning, under the solemn sound of psalms, echoing against the stone walls of the church. It was the year 1077, at the monastery of Bec in what is now northern France. Anselm was happy. “The grace of God shone on his heart, the whole matter became clear to his mind, and a great joy and jubilation filled his inmost being,” his friend and biographer Eadmer would later write.</P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://happydays.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/the-self-thinking-thought/"><P>For Catholics, Anselm is a saint, a theologian and bishop who defended the Church from the encroachment of kings. For philosophers, he’s the inventor of an ingenious and still-controversial artifice of abstraction. The great 20th century mathematician Kurt Gödel had this to say about him:</P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://happydays.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/the-self-thinking-thought/"><P>It was the attempt to succeed at both Catholicism and philosophy that first put Anselm on my required reading list. But the person I found in his pages was neither bishop nor logician so much as an effusive confidant.</P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://happydays.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/the-self-thinking-thought/"><div align="center"><img src="http://content7.clipmarks.com/blog_cache/happydays.blogs.nytimes.com/img/14686F17-04CF-4B44-BD98-AF512FAF1CE7" alt="" /></div></blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/72418651-C784-4936-A81F-1B8BA6BA269D/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content8.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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